1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method for requesting location related information of a mobile terminal device, to a terminal device and to a system that allows the handling of location services in a manner that is independent from a cellular communication system, especially in mobile networks.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Different techniques are available to determine information about positions and/or locations of mobile communication equipment, especially mobile communication terminals. A position/location information may relate to a set of data defining the position of mobile communication equipment in relationship to a reference coordinate system, having an application-specific data format and/or being based on or derived from position information such as geographical coded information e.g. street names, altitudes, velocities etc. The determination of such position/location information allows for providing a broad number of applications and services being based thereon, employing it, assisted thereby and depending thereon, respectively.
In principle, these location featured applications and services may be divided into two classes of applications and services, and more precisely, a location based service or application, i.e. for example an application or a service which uses information about location and/or position for processing a corresponding derived or dependent service information based thereon, and a location dependent service or application, i.e. for example an application or a service available and/or allowed for being used within a certain predefined geographical area.
In general, location featured applications and services will become one of the coming key features and solutions therefore are just under development. Presently, the access to location services provided by cellular communication systems distinguishes between internal client and external client, i.e. mobile communication terminal device being subscribed in the cellular communication system and acting as clients requesting location services and networked entities accessing the location services provided by operators of cellular communication systems from exterior, respectively. The access procedures differ for internal and external clients. Hence, operators of public land mobile networks (PLMN) have to implement location service (LCS) logic for both potential clients resulting in a scattered, redundant and consequently in an uneconomical implementation.
Moreover, a location based application holds a key role in the transaction as it initiates a positioning function. In order to make a best use out of the positioning function as well as to achieve a best possible user experience of the location enabled consumer services, a major part of the application execution and process will reside physically in the mobile terminal. In these use cases location information as a result of the positioning function should be available in the mobile terminal available for the terminal resident application use.
An object of the invention is to provide an interoperable method allowing a mobile communication terminal device for employing location services (LCS) in a way independent of a cellular communication system in which the mobile communication terminal device is subscribed. A further object of the invention is to provide a mobile communication terminal device allowing for operation of the inventive method and a system comprising a mobile communication terminal device and a location serving entity capable of performing the inventive method.